2015.08.24 - Melissa McCall: Miracle-Worker--Or, Liam Needs a Favor
Note: This scene takes place after A Day at Macy's. It's approaching early evening when Melissa and Stiles arrive at the McCall home so Melissa can freshen up and grab her personal medical bag--she'd just gotten off of work, you see. They're driving separately, so Melissa parks in the driveway and scoots right on into the house, heading straight upstairs to her room where said freshening up can occur. Stiles is left to wander about downstairs (or snoop about Scott's room) until she's done. The Jeep pulls up shortly after, and Stiles emerges following Melissa inside. "I really appreciate it," he mumbles, clearly agitated and anxious, his mind elsewhere, but he's still not going to be rude to Mama McCall. Especially not when she's agreed to give up some of her precious free time to help out one of his friends. Once she's gone upstairs, he flops in a chair in the living room to wait. He dutifully does not put up his feet on the coffee table, despite the temptation. God, he's tired lately. Ethan Carver parks the rental Mercedes in front of the McCall house, looking more than a little uneasy about this. "Stay put till I get the door open," he says to Liam in the passenger seat. Liam is holding a black forest cake under a glass dome on his lap, you see, and Ethan doesn't want him to drop it. Just when did Ethan have time to bake it? Anyway, he hops out, moves to the passenger door, opens it, and carefully takes the cake from Liam. He lets out a breath of relief, stepping back, so Liam and Grey can both get out. Liam Dunbar had asked Ethan to get a bottle of wine for Melissa. And instead he has this cake in his lap. Which he hands to Ethan before he gets out. Other wise he'll be wearing it and have to change clothes again. He helps his brother out of the back seat. Then walks up and knock on the door. "Hey Ms. McCall? Um you said drop by after work?" He calls out nervously and making sure to stand far away from the cake. Grey Dunbar gets out of the car and is now dressed in one of the fifty new outfits he got earlier today, he was panning on saving them for starting school but when he was taking a shower his other clothes mysteriously seem to have disappeared. Following behind Liam and Ethan Grey's a little on edge wondering how this is gonna go down. The timing is a bit awkward, since Melissa's in the middle of washing her face and reapplying a little foundation. Hey, mama likes to look pretty, too. So instead of rushing downstairs, she instead just calls, "Stiles! Can you get the door, please? I'll be down in just a few minutes." "Got it!" Stiles calls upstairs, and a moment later he's opening the door. Spotting Ethan, he smirks a bit at the cake and says, "Aw, for me? Dude, you shouldn't have. That's so sweet." Then he eyes the whole group of them and says, "Whatever this is, it better not take too long. We've got a lot going on tonight." But, he gestures for them to come inside. "Come on in. Sit. Don't break anything or put your feet on anything. Seriously, Melissa will end you." Ethan Carver frowns a bit at Stiles, but gives him a pleasant enough nod as he steps into the house. He even remembers to wipe his feet on the welcome mat first. "This won't take long, I hope," he says, looking around. It's a nice house. Small, sure, but homey. The sort of place he and Aiden might have grown up in, if their parents hadn't been dicks. "Is Melissa here? We need to ask her...No, the cake's not for you, Stilinski. Why would I bake you a cake? Get your own boyfriend to do that." He looks over to Liam and Grey, giving hsi eyes a roll. Liam Dunbar was about to respond to Stiles when Ethan says that. "So where's my cake! Wait... on point. Um you're the one who told me to talk to Melissa. And tell her everything. Remember? I wanted to have Ethan adopt Grey and sign the papers!" Well that was one idea one of about 500 in a text that Stiles likely didn't read all of... Then he looks back at Ethan, but doesn't say anything. Grey Dunbar makes sure to wipe his feet (even though the shough are brand new) as he goes in and when he sits down he takes Stiles literally and holds his feet a couple of inches off the ground, they're asking for help, gotta make the best impression ever, right? And to that end, to avoid saying anything stupid, speak when spoken to time. Mercifully for the assembled teens, Melissa is a mistress of the quick refresh (as ER nurses have to be), and is shortly thumping her way down the stairs, medical bag in hand. She's redone her hair so it doesn't like like quite the medusa mash of ringlets it was earlier, and also pulled it back. Her cosmetics have also been touched up so she doesn't look quite as frazzled and tired as she did ten minutes earlier. "Hey boys," she says, upon noting the growing assembly in her living room. At least she seems to have expected them. "Stiles, Liam mentioned he needed to talk to me--my understanding is that this won't take long." She then moves to take a seat, crosses one leg over the other like a queen in her castle, and then rests her arms atop the medical bag now in her lap. "Alrighty, Liam. What's up?" Stiles looks pretty skeptical at the idea of Ethan adopting Grey, but he manages not to shoot it down immediately. "Yeah, definitely something to discuss with Melissa," he agrees. Liam gets his hair ruffled, and Stiles grins at Ethan. "Dude, if I asked Lance for cake, I'd probably come home and find my house either exploded or turned into a bakery. Anyway, Melissa's here, just sit your ass down and be patient. She'll be down in a sec." Then, as Grey sits, Stiles goes to tap him lightly on the shoulder. "Dude. You can put your feet on the floor. Just don't put 'em anywhere else." Then, as Melissa appears, he goes to stand over near her chair, unconsciously taking up a sentry-like position where he can watch out the window. Clearly, something is weighing heavily on Stiles' mind. Ethan Carver rolls his eyes a Liam, muttering, "This was your cake, until...." He shakes his head, then frowns a bit at what Stiles says, making a note to ask him about it later. There's just something off about Lance...But Melissa is here now, and Ethan steps forward with the cake. It's obviously home-baked, not from a bakery, and while it's not perfect, Ethan actually did a fairly good job of it. "Missus McCall, this is for you. Er." He hesitates a few moments, then instead of thrusting it at her, he places it carefully on the coffee table. "Just wanted to apologize for...Well, you know. Trying to kill Scott was never my idea. Or Aiden's. It was all Deucalion." Okay, this isn't really making things better, so he takes a deep breath and says, "I'm sorry." Then he moves to stand behind Liam's chair, keeping his mouth shut for the time being. Sorry, Liam, you're on your own...for now, at least. Liam Dunbar was about to talk when Ethan.... When he... Wow Liam can't even splutter or think or. He just sits there mouth open and stares. He looks to Grey, "... Why... " He shakes his head again and realizes that he can't even begin to anything. That just ... Okay must do something. Liam was sitting in the middle of the couch then suddenly he was on the ground feet in the air. Yep he fell on purpose. What else was he supposed to do? Grey Dunbar is about to put his feet on the floor when Melissa appears and he freezes keeping them where they are, he almost litterally jaw-drops at Ethan's words and then Liam's on the floor and all he can think to offer is, "This is a lovely home Ma'm". With just one sentence, Ethan's already caused Melissa's eyes to narrow, and then her brows to furrow, weighing heavy, and weighing with ill portents. Her posture doesn't change--she's still sitting there like some weathered mafiosa, her hands the scales of criminal justice, weighing Ethan's apology against cement shoes, and finding the former... lacking. "Ethan," she begins, saying this slowly, tasting the sounds that come from her mouth like they're some bitter, jagged pill. Of course, then Liam thumps against the floor, and whatever the woman was about to say tumbles out of her lungs in the form of a very heavy, exasperated sigh. "Thank you," she says, after a beat, presumably to Ethan. And then, the storm, this time, most certainly directed at Ehtan: "But do you really expect a cake to eliminate all the awful things you did while in that jackass's pack?" There's even a little latina head-shake. Mm-Hmm. The woman sighs hard and tosses her head back against the chair. "Look, Scott forgave you, so I forgave you. But that doesn't mean I'm still not really pissed off at you about it." The said, she does glance at the cake again, and reaches out a finger to collect some of the icing, which she tastes. Huh. It's good. "Pissed off slightly less, now," she concedes, waving Ethan off, the Don momentarily appeased. "It's fine, Liam. If I was still Really that mad at Ethan, I would have chased him out of the house already." With a baseball bat, one may presume. "So about what you needed." Stiles groans softly. "Ethan, get Liam off the floor, would you?" he asks softly, then looks away. He has little to say right now. Melissa's talking. She has the floor. And Stiles... well, his mind is very clearly elsewhere. He just keeps glancing back out the window, apparently deep in thought. Brow furrowed and expression distant, anyone who knows him will know that the cogs in his brain are whirring away at high speed, attempting to unravel some problem or another. He's so distracted, he doesn't even feel the need to fidget or shift around, like usual. Ethan Carver sucks in a breath when Liam falls off the couch. Somehow. His fists clench at his sides, and he squeezes his eyes shut for a long moment. Sure, there was a second where panic and concern flashed across his expression, but he's getting used to Liam's frequent bouts of clumsiness, and he knows the kid has super-healing anyway, so...He lets out a long sigh, muttering to himself, "Gosh, he's pretty." When he opens his eyes again, he gives Melissa a small nod. "I'm doing everything I can to atone for the awful things I did, ma'am. It's one of the reasons I'm here today." His eyes fall to Liam again, and somehow, he manages not to roll them. He does reach down to pull Liam up and deposit him on the couch again. "Why don't you ask her, before you end up in a body cast or something." Liam Dunbar almost admitted super healing... then realizes that grey doesn't know any of this back story. So he has to come up with some cover story. And Stiles is too preoccupied to help. So.... Um He'll teel grey some line about Melissa being a mob boss, and Ethan being a former soldier from a rival family? Yeah that works! Okay with that safely sorted in his mind, he goes back to the original reason he came here. "Uh okay... Um its like this. Uh Grey is apparently my brother.. Only we didn't know that till like yesterday? Or the day before? I don't remember. Anyway His mom is missing or uh something. And he's currently staying with Ethan... Oh yeah by the way I'm currently kinda Dating Ethan so that's why. And we need to get him some place legal, and enrolled in school. But My dad apparently left my mom when she was pregnant with me broke her heart, so i don't think she'd want to take care of him. But you work with my dad and you're awesome so you can fix it right?" There might have been.... okay there was no breathing in that entire sentence. Paragraph? Rant we'll go with rant. And if Liam hadn't been a werewolf he'd likely be passed out before he finished it. As if he's panting for breath. Grey Dunbar did open his mouth several times to say something but the weirdness and awkwardness of this is way beyond anything the young half-demon can handle, he is however able to offer a slight, "Yeah", to confirm Liam's story, so very glad that he is not the one doing the talking, though maybe it shouldn't be Liam either... In a motion marinated with meaning, Melissa places her open palm against her forehead and just... listens. She has no more rancor for Ethan, as she typically doesn't like carrying that around, so she clearly feels no further need to address that particular elephant. The waterfall of words from Liam has the bulk of concentration, as she tries to parse the information in a manner she can actually make use of. "So, you're concerned your mother won't take in your brother because your dad was a jerk." She allows that to swim around in her head for a moment, the hand on her forehead sliding into her hair. So much for keeping it all neat. "I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you probably haven't actually asked her yet." More thinking. "Alright, look. If this were dropped on me? I'd be pretty freaked out. So, step one: What do you have that can prove to her that the both of you are brothers?" "I have the paperwork," Stiles says absently. Then, glancing to Melissa, he emphasizes, "I have the very unofficial paperwork, that is definitely for Liam's mom's eyes only." A beat, and he adds, to Melissa, "Or yours, obviously." So he's listening after all. And, while the others may not know it yet, he automatically includes Melissa in the loop of their shenanigans. That's a more recent development, as once upon a time he'd have tried to hide it all, but it seems something's changed, there. But that said, Stiles returns to gazing out the window and falls, once more, unusually silent and still. Nope, nothing to see here. You can go about your business. Move along. Ethan Carver lets out another long sigh as Liam begins to speak. And babble. And stumble around his words. One hand goes up to rub his temple, and the other lays lightly on Liam's shoulder. "Just look at them," he says in a soft tone. "Their eyes. I mean, Grey's aren't as gorgeous as Liam's, but...." Okay, that definitely isn't going to help, so Ethan again shuts up. He glances over when Stiles speaks, and a small frown crosses his face. He moves a bit closer, lowering his voice further still. "Are you okay, man?" Liam Dunbar did actually have a plan for that, cause he'd forgotten about asking Stiles and giving him information. Granted it likely wasn't as official as Stiles' but... He pulls out a little baggy inside are copies of both of their birth certificates, and a two pictures of the same guy. Yeah not iron clad, but it was something. "Uh Stiles' might be better." Wow he didn't rant or fall over... Grey Dunbar has gone kind of pale now very conserned with whatever world he's walked into, these people talking so openly about murder and simply forgiving it and what the hell is a pack? Right now he's considering if it might be safer in the long run just to run, what has he gotten himself into? Ay, caramba. /Illegal/ is leagues away from the word she wanted to hear. Melissa just makes a zipping motion with her fingers and clearly doesn't want to hear any more about it. "Okay, so you have papers... and birth certificates." She lifts that same hand into the air and splays her fingers out suddenly like a firework. "Bam, so. Liam, Stiles, throw all of that together for me into a folder. For the sake of expediency, I'll take it to the Sherriff in the morning and then go talk to your mom, Liam. She'll want to know why the hell I'm talking to her about because I'm no social worker, but I'll spin some tail about how you and Grey showed up at the hospital, blah blah. That way I can point her in the right direction and give her a good mom-to-mom counseling session just in case she's not feeling particularly charitable." Stiles glances over at Ethan in mild surprise and shakes his head. "What? No. I mean, yeah. Yeah, everything's fine, dude. Anyway, this isn't about me." He glances over at Liam when the kid speaks up, raising his eyebrows a bit. "What you have is probably plenty. I'd... rather not have to tap my particular source unless we've got to. I'm not gonna say I took illicit copies of confidential documents or anything... but suffice to say, if this particular bit of information came to light, my dad might literally kill me. Like, with a shotgun." Either way, he'll put the information into Melissa's hands and trust her with it. Because he trusts her." Melissa's solution brings a little smile to his face, and as he turns back to the window, he says in a quiet, slightly rough voice that he doesn't seem to use in front of many others that often, "See? Told you she'd know what to do. It's all handled, now." And immediately, Stiles is once again lightyears away. Ethan Carver glances over to the others, nodding to himself. Stiles had been right, Melissa was the perfect solution to this problem. And she has things well in hand. But Ethan turns back to Stiles again, laying a hand gently on his shoulder. "Nobody ever accused me of being the most perceptive guy around, but I know when something's wrong. Anything I can do, man? I know I'm leaving tomorrow night, but if I can do anything before then...." Liam Dunbar just whews and hopes this works. Then looks over to Grey. How to make him more comfortable with all this? "Um... Ms. McCall is sort of the team mother for all us Lacrosse players. We go to her if we need help and she usually gives us good advice. Sometimes she talks to people. Uh last year Ethan was on the team with a Jerk who ... Played a prank on Scott. That's her son. And it got out of hand and almost ended up with him really hurt. Thus cake." Where this story came from? Who knows, but it might work! Grey Dunbar is finally able to talk, "A attempted murder prank?", he may have some attemtion spen issues that make him an adverage student but he's actually pretty intelligent, you don't have to be a demon to know things aren't adding up here, he's trying not to get to freaked out, the more paniced he is the more likely it is his demon side will manifest. Accepting the documents, Melissa clears her throat and interjects, "Ritual hazing," by way of explanation of all this crazytalk. "It got very, very out of hand." Neither of which is untrue. She also gives Ethan a thoroughly unamused glance to sell the story. "Regardless, Stiles and I need to go deal with something so I can get home at a reasonable hour. If I have any more questions, Liam, I'll text you." That said, she finally begins to stand, which announces that this particular audience is over. "Ethan," Stiles says reproachfully, looking half over his shoulder at the werewolf. "Leave it alone. You do you. You've got the whole... training day thing going on. I've got me things going on. You don't have to worry about it." Stiles is, of course, known for being a bit moody at times, but he's not usually so quick to bite someone's head off like that. In either case, he completely ignores Liam and Grey's exchange, only nodding when Melissa speaks up. He doesn't add anything, though. Clearly, whatever they need to deal with... his mind is already there. Ethan Carver knows when to back off, though it's clear in his eyes that he's really concerned about Stiles right now. But backing off, yep. "Okay, man, I get it," he says, voice still low, as he steps over to the couch again, looking at Melissa. "Thank you, Missus McCall. I know you'll watch out for Liam, and I really can't thank you enough." He looks down to his boyfriend, giving him a smile, then over to Grey as well. "C'mon, let's get out of here, before we overstay our welcome. Or Liam breaks something." Liam Dunbar glares at Ethan. HE had to cover up Ethan's whole murder thing. And he did an awesome job! Stiles didn't even yell at him! So it must have been an amazing coverup! Yep! He's got on his #Imtheboss cock grin now. And he stands up and starts to swagger out without even looking at Grey... Wait he's the Reason they're there. Crap! Okay HE looks back over to see how Grey took everything. Did Ms. McCall fix everything with him too? Grey Dunbar gets to his feet, "Thank you Ms. McCall", he may be focused on other things but he was raised well and will thank someone trying to help him, "Bye Stiles". He starts heading towards the door, he doesn't buy the story, theres something darker going on here and while his gut is screaming at him to run, he's already starting to care about Liam and if theres something dangerous happening here, he's not gonna just abandon him to it. * Scene continues in: 2015.08.24 - Mama McCall Makes a Housecall * Ethan's story continues in: Gathering: Alley Encounter